And In Those Times
by PhoenixDragonDreamer
Summary: Sherlock listened, but only half the time.


**A/N:** Please forgive the sloppiness. I sat down and wrote this in one go, and it is (once more) part of a much larger fic that I'm fiddling with. There are so many awesome Sherlock writers out there and so VERY many TRF fics that I'm afraid mine will not stand out much at all. Suspect I'm crap at writing for this Fandom, but you can blame my friends for pushing me to write it *laughs*  
**Disclaimer(s):** Alas, I do not own BBC Sherlock of any characters therein. That is solely the pleasure of S. Mofftat, M. Gatiss and the BBC Networks. Just having a bit of fun - no money made, please don't sue.

* * *

There are times -

_when John thinks too much_

- when John wonders if he should have stayed with Harry after all. Harry and her on-again/off-again marriage and her drinking problems and her crying at 2am and the endless, endless fights with Clara (at home or on the phone) - because it either prepared him too well for Sherlock, or not well enough.

He first thinks these things while watching the grave-diggers fill in the grave (there will be a simple headstone, Mycroft will pay for it) -

_As he should_ (viciously)

- close enough to see them working, but not close enough to _see_.

He thinks this while smoking on of Sherlock's cigarettes (low-tar - '_Disgusting, but necessary_' - he can almost hear him), one of Sherlock's scarves wrapped around his throat, Sherlock's phone in his right pocket. His own is in his left, but nobody calls - well...nobody other than Harry and he stopped talking to her a long time ago. He never stopped _hearing_ her, but what is the point of talking to someone who never listens?

Sherlock listened, but only half the time.

He'd stay up til all hours, experiments stinking up the flat, violin screeching until 3am - flaming rows with boredom at 4am and then there was the endless, endless searches for narcotics when Sherlock was caseless and bored. The faint waft of cigarettes was always the first sign and really, how was that not like Harry? Harry who would come home reeking of sweat and adrenaline before she would hit the bottle -

_Just a little one Johnny, s'not like it's a big deal. I'm not an _alchoholic_..._

- Sherlock smelling of mania and nicotine before...

But he didn't die of an overdose. Unless you call the biting hounds of the media and Moriarty and Mycroft's bloody-mindedness an overdose. Who knew? And besides John himself - who cared? He was just as dead either way.

It was a lesson, he was sure.

Now he was just waiting for Harry's turn, wasn't he?

Harry with her close-calls in the ER. Harry with her screaming fights with Clara at 2am that would lead her to another bottle, then another - the poison didn't matter, just how quickly it was administered.

He wondered if his life with his sister from the age of 16 on was preparation for Sherlock.

Harry was intelligent with a razor-sharp tongue that dulled when she'd had too much. And she'd _always_ have too much. Sherlock never seemed to have enough. But really, the only major difference between Harry and Sherlock (besides their drugs of choice) was Harry would at least shower every day and go to work every morning (massive hangover not withstanding).

Beyond that, Sherlock was more of an idiot, even as he was more of a genius. Harry knew when to back down, how to gauge people. Sherlock did not - nor did he care to learn.

Seemed bloody-mindedness ran in the family.

He watched them put the finishing touches on the grave, cigarette burning down to his fingers, lips numb with cold - and wondered.

If he had stayed with Harry...

If he had stayed with Harry, Sherlock might still be alive. He might have burnt out, been hospitalised for mania - any number of things. But he might still be alive.

Thoughts like these were designed to be ignored -

_You can't kill an idea...not once it has been planted_

- but he knew this one was going to be nipping at his heels for a long time to come.

A phone rang.

Left pocket, so it must be Harry - a deduction that was hardly worth making, as he was most certainly right. But he had been right the last ten times she had called, too. It gave him the perverse urge to call his own phone with Sherlock's - just to have a break up in the monotony of Harry's endless need to be helpful and forgiven all at once.

And he was too tired to lean on her and yet let her be Harry at the same time.

He had an appointment to keep with the psychiatrist he sort of fired, yet still needed. Mycroft was right - she was an idiot - but maybe that's why John needed to see her. Mycroft being right about anything when he was so wrong about everything else...the idea set his teeth on edge. So he'd see her, struggle through the session and go back home to the empty flat that smelled of Sherlock's experiments, with Sherlock's papers and books scattered everywhere and his violin -

One of the grave-diggers waved at him and he waved back without really wanting to, resenting that the man had buried his friend (like he had thousands of others) and likely laughed and joked with his co-worker -

'_This guy was suppose to be some kind of famous detective - turned out to be a screaming nutter, didn't he? Oh well, they all bury the same, right?_' (Followed by raucous laughter)

- like Sherlock was everybody else. Like it was okay to pile dirt on him, let the world move on and his name be smeared then forgotten. It wasn't right.

And there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it.

He hated him, just a little. He hated him for all the ways he reminded him of Harry, even as they were nothing at all alike. He hated him for declaring he was a fake -

_Stop that...No -_

and then stepping away from the roof ensuring he had the last word.

He hated the feeling that somehow he had failed Sherlock. If he had been a tad faster, if he had never left him in the first place -

He hated how much he depended on him - like Sherlock depended on cases or cigarettes or cocaine.

Like Harry depended on Clara and alchohol and the forgiveness of her little brother.

Harry had held his hand through their mother's illness and her eventual death.

Sherlock had saved him from loneliness and the war (the one he had left and the one within himself).

But Sherlock - a man without friends - had been his friend. He had tried. He learned. And then he gave it all up and declared everything they'd had -

He should never have taken a walk through the park (only to stumble across Stamford).

He should have told Harry 'yes'.

He tossed the dead cigarette butt to the pristine ground (feeling slightly reckless and viciously giddy as he did so) and turned to walk away, his back to the overturned earth that now cradled the most intelligent, infuriating, wonderful and terrible human being he had ever known.

He wondered (occasionally) if Harry and Harry's life and how he fit into it was to prepare him for the man who was buried behind him. Even as he knew nothing could have ever prepared him for Sherlock Holmes.

But he still wondered.


End file.
